Conectarse a la red Ares desde Ubuntu

Uno de los mayores reclamos que nos hacen los usuarios de Windows a los que usamos Soft Libre es la dificultad para conectarnos con la red del Ares. Ares es una herramienta p2p bastante particular, que permite descargas mucho más rápidas que las que se logran usando la red ed2K (eMule y derivados), aunque tiene una menor oferta de archivos "viejos" o un poco más raros (con eMule se pueden encontrar las cosas más extrañas que a uno se le ocurran).

Bien, una posibilidad válida es correr Ares usando wine; funciona bien, pero consume muchos recursos de la PC, ya que wine, por sí solo, no es para nada liviano.

Pero la solución nativa para Ubuntu viene de la mano de giFT, un cliente p2p multiprotocolo simple, pero que tiene la particularidad de poder conectarse a la red del Ares :)


A los hechos.
Los pasos a realizar son los siguientes:


1) Instalación del Cliente de redes P2P giFT
2) Instalación de plugin red Ares
3) Instalación de interfase gráfica para giFT
4) Configuración del giFT
5) Actualización de nodos
6) Ejecución


Paso 1)
Es muy fácil, ya que giFT está en los repositorios:

$ sudo aptitude install gift giftcurs giftd giftui libgift0 libgiftproto0 libgnutella-gift libopenft-gift


Paso 2)
El plugin de Ares para giFT puede hallarse en varios lugares (hay que pregunarrle a Google ;) ), pero sugiero usar este:

http://www.esnips.com/doc/e6f8233f-d36c-45fa-a4f6-44bf305ed8ee/gift-ares_0.4.0-1_i386

Es un paquete .deb, así que se instala con el manejador de paquetes de nuestra preferencia. Listo, al paso siguiente.


Paso 3)
La interfaz gráfica es la que usaremos para interactuar con el demonio giftd; la interfaz más simple para Gnome es giftoxic y para KDE es apollon. Ambas interfaces están en los repositorios, así que su instalación no es problema:

$ sudo aptitude install giftoxic

o

$ sudo aptitude install apollon


Paso 4)
Aquí encontramos una diferencia con Ares para Windows: la configuración de giFT se realiza editando su archivo principal, no hay una interfaz gráfica para hacer esto. Pero no es difícil ;)
Una manera de editar el archivo es correr el comando de configuración:

$ gift-setup

Con esto va a arrancar un asistente (en inglés :( ) y nos hará preguntas de las más diversas; es cuestión de leer y responder en consecuencia.

La otra opción es editar directamente el archivo de configuración con un editor de textos, colocando en cada sección los parámetros que querramos. El comando es:

$ gedit /home/usuario/.giFT/giftd.conf

Si están en Kubuntu quizá el editor sea kwrite; el texto "usuario" deberán reemplazarlo por su nombre de usuario.

Verán que el archivo está muy explicado, vayan colocando los parámetros que más se ajusten a sus necesidades.
A modo de ejemplo, les pego mi archivo de configuración:


# $Id: giftd.conf.template,v 1.6 2004/09/08 12:05:32 mkern Exp $
###############################################################################

###############################################################################
# MAIN

[main]

#
# Boolean determining whether or not this file has been reviewed and is
# complete. giFT will fail to start unless this is non-zero. This is done
# so that we can make sure you, at the very least, read through this file.
#
# Default: 0
#
setup = 1

#
# Space separated list of hosts to allow connection to giFT's interface
# protocol (running default on port 1213). This protocol is used for GUIs
# to communicate with giFT and could be considered a security risk to allow
# external connections.
#
# The following special keywords are supported:
#
# ALL - Synonym for 0.0.0.0/0
# LOCAL - Synonym for 127.0.0.0/8 192.168.0.0/16 172.0.0.0/11 10.0.0.0/8
#
# Bitwidth fields are optional.
#
# Default: LOCAL
#
hosts_allow = LOCAL

#
# Port on which to listen for user interface connections. Unless you have a
# special need to talk to the client on a non-standard port, just accept the
# default.
#
# NOTE:
# If you change this value, you will also need to modify the ui.conf
# configuration for the machine which will be making outgoing connections
# here.
#
client_port = 1213

#
# Determines whether or not to follow symbolic links. If this value is set
# non-zero, symlinks will be traversed and a directory inode tracking system
# will be used to ensure that giFT does not descend the same directory
# twice. If you do not have any symlinks or do not want them traversed, set
# this to 0 for a very minor efficiency gain.
#
# Windows users: this setting has no effect.
#
# Default: 1
#
follow_symlinks = 1

#
# Colon separated list of protocol plugins to load by default. If dynamic
# library support is enabled, the plugin specified will be stat'd to check if
# it is a loadable path. If that fails, the fallback method is to attempt to
# construct the fully qualified path based on the configured environment.
#
# NOTES:
# Without dynamic library support, this plugin must have been compiled into
# your giFT binary. With, this plugin must exist in the installed
# plugin directory. giFT -V will output this path to you, if you are not
# sure.
#
# Protocol names are case sensitive, so use OpenFT, not Openft.
#
# For example, to use the OpenFT and Gnutella protocols use:
#
# OpenFT:Gnutella
#
# Default: none
#
plugins = OpenFT:Ares

###############################################################################
# DOWNLOAD CONTROLS

[download]

#
# Directory to store transfers while they are being operated on. Temporary
# state files are also kept here. It is recommended, but not required, that
# the incoming and completed directories are on the same partition (drive).
#
# Windows users: please use the following path specification:
#
# incoming=/[drive]/dir1/dir2
#
# For example, to refer to C:\Program Files\giFT\incoming, use:
#
# incoming=/C/Program Files/giFT/incoming
#
# Default (*nix): ~/.giFT/incoming
# Default (Windows): /C/Program Files/giFT/incoming
#
incoming = ~/.giFT/incoming

#
# Directory which will contain files after they have successfully finished
# downloading.
#
# Default (*nix): ~/.giFT/completed
# Default (Windows): /C/Program Files/giFT/completed
#
completed = ~/.giFT/completed

###############################################################################
# SHARE SUBMISSION AND UPLOAD CONTROL

[sharing]

#
# Maximum amount of uploads allowed from the same user at any given time. It
# is recommended that you keep this at 1 in order to prevent users from
# unfairly queueing your connection.
#
# Default: 1
#
max_peruser_uploads = 1

#
# Determines whether or not to hide directories which contain a leading dot.
# These directories are commonly meant to be "hidden" and thus should not be
# submitted to the network. Selecting 0 here will submit all directories.
#
# On Windows files will additionally be checked for the hidden attribute and
# not shared if it is set and hide_dot_files is 1.
#
# Default: 1
#
hide_dot_files = 1

#
# Colon separated list of fully qualified paths you wish to share. These
# directories will be recursed at giFT's startup and the files contained
# within will be subjected to an MD5 hashing. The results will be cached and
# will only be recalculated on a per share basis when the size or
# modification time in the cache and on disk disagree, or the file name is
# changed.
#
# Sanity notice:
# Do NOT share source directories! Remote nodes will refuse to index your
# shares if you are attempting to submit more than 64000 files.
#
# Security notice:
# Do not share directories which may contain sensitive information, such as
# ~ ($HOME). Also note that any directories shared here will be stripped of
# all but the last path element when submitted to other nodes for indexing,
# effectively "hiding" the directory prefix.
#
# Windows users: please use the following path specification:
#
# /[drive]/dir1/dir2:/[drive]/dir3/dir4 ...
#
# For example, to refer to C:\Program Files\giFT\shares and D:\shares, use:
#
# /C/Program Files/giFT/shares:/D/shares
#
# Default: none
#
root =

#
# Maximum amount of simultaneous uploads allowed. Setting this to 0 will
# cause giFT to not limit outgoing transfers. Use shares_hidden to disable
# sharing.
#
# Default: 0
#
max_uploads = 0

#
# Whether we allow sharing. Setting this to 0 will allow sharing and uploads
# up to max_uploads. If this is 1 your shares will be hidden from the world
# and uploading will be denied. This may also be handled at run time via your
# GUI of choice.
#
# Default: 0
#
shares_hidden = 0

#
# Controls when giFT periodically rescans your shared directories for any
# changes (new files, missing files, changed files, etc.) and communicates
# those changes to the underlying protocols. This parameter specifies how
# often (in seconds) you want that to happen.
#
# For your reference
# ==================
# 0 turns off periodic auto-resync
# 3600 one hour
# 86400 one day
# 604800 one week
#
# Default: 86400
#
auto_resync_interval = 86400

#
# Controls whether or not giFT should automatically share files that you have
# finished downloading. This feature significantly improves the network's
# abundance of files and helps ease the load on those sharing popular files.
# It's a Good Thing (TM), please leave it on.
#
# Avoid setting your completed directories through sharing/root, as that
# setting will duplicate recursion of the completed directory and cause
# generally undesirable results.
#
# Default: 1
#
share_completed = 1

#
# Controls whether giFT ignores the incoming directory when sharing files. If
# this is 1 and the incoming directory is within one of the sharing roots all
# files in and below it will not be shared. This is what you want in all known
# universes. Should you find yourself running this software on a parallel
# world where it is necessary to share the incoming files please make sure it
# doesn't affect us back here. Thank you.
#
# Default: 1
#
ignore_incoming = 1

###############################################################################
# USER SPACE BANDWIDTH CONTROL

[bandwidth]

#
# Bandwidth throttling allows giFT to have some basic control over your
# bandwidth usage. This code operates in user space, and as a result can not
# guarantee perfect accuracy. If you wish to use this feature, please
# consider using a more reliable kernel space option first. As always, google
# should be able to assist you there.
#
# The following configuration switches control the maximum number of bytes
# per second allowed for the given stream direction. A setting of 0 will
# disable throttling for that direction.
#
# Default: 0
#
downstream = 0
upstream = 0



Con este archivo me puedo conectar a la red de Ares sin problemas.


Paso 5)
Para que funcione, hay que descargar manualmente los nodos de la red (en Ares no hay servidores, tal como existen en ed2k)

Los nodos están aquí:

http://update.kceasy.com/update/ares/

Hay que hacer click derecho sobre el archivo "nodes" y elegir “Guardar enlace como”, en la ventana borrar la terminación .htm (queda solo “nodes”) y lo guardan en

/home/usuario/.giFT/Ares


Paso 6)
A arrancar el programa!! Primero, desde una consola, correr

$ giftd -v

para iniciar el demonio; luego, desde el menú de aplicaciones de nuestro sistema, arrancamos la interfaz de usuario. Veremos que ya estamos conectardos a Ares :)

Si no arrancamos manualmente el demonio, al iniciar la interfaz de usuario arranca solo; por las dudas yo lo arranqué manualmnete la primera vez, luego arrancó solo.

A disfrutar de Ares bajo Ubuntu, sin emular!!



Créditos:
Buena parte de este contenido salió de

http://www.tuxinga.com.ar/2007/11/11/ares-en-ubuntukubuntu-sin-wine/

y de

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-ar/2009-February/017818.html